Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Has Hamas become a diversion for Iran?

Caroline Glick wonders if the current war against Hamas is serving to take attention away from Iran deliberately. That's an interesting question. She says:
The second reason that it is possible that Hamas may be defeated is because much to everyone's surprise, Iran may have decided to let Hamas lose.

Here it is important to note that the war today, like the war in 2006, is a war between Israel and Iran. Like Hizbullah, Hamas is an Iranian proxy. And just as was the case in 2006, Iran was instrumental in inciting the current war.

Iran prepared Hamas for this war. It used Hamas's six-month cease-fire with Israel to double both the range and the size of Hamas's missile arsenal. It trained Hamas's 20,000-man army for this war. And as the six months drew to a close, Iran incited Hamas to attack.

So too, in 2006, Iran incited Hamas to attack Israel. That war, now known as the Second Lebanon War, was actually a two-front war that began in Gaza. Ordered by Iran, it was Hamas that started the war when its forces (together with allied forces in Fatah), attacked the IDF position at Kerem Shalom on June 25, 2006 and kidnapped Cpl. Gilad Schalit. Israel fought a limited war against Iran's Palestinian proxies in Gaza for 17 days before the country's attention moved to the North after Hizbullah attacked an IDF position along the border and abducted Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser. [...]

Alas, there is another possible explanation for Iran's apparent decision to abandon a vassal it incited to open a war. On Sunday, Iranian analyst Amir Taheri reported the conclusions of a bipartisan French parliamentary report on the status of Iran's nuclear program in Asharq Alawsat. The report which was submitted to French President Nicolas Sarkozy late last month concluded that unless something changes, Iran will have passed the nuclear threshold by the end of 2009 and will become a nuclear power no later than 2011. The report is notable because it is based entirely on open-sourced material whose accuracy has been acknowledged by the Iranian regime.

The report asserts that this year will be the world's final opportunity to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. And, as Taheri hints strongly, the only way of doing that effectively is by attacking Iran's nuclear installations.
Read the whole item. My theory emerging from this is that, if her analysis makes any sense, Iran has decided to let Hamas go down because they have an even more lethal weapon in store - the nuclear device. And that's why, even as the war with Hamas goes on, Iran needs to be taken down as well.

2 comments:

Just Cause said...

Interesting theory. When read in conjunction with the post below it though (The Jews fighting our war) that notes Israel's impending compitulation another theory springs to mind.

If Israel backs off before the job is done as they did in 2006 with Hezbollah it will indeed send signals of weakness to Iran, and the world over.

However, these signals might be the ones Israels want to send out in order to lull Iran into a false sense of security and perhaps a short distance away in time they take the initiative and launch a full blown offensive? Supposedly the Eqyptians were a little economical with the truth with Hamas prior to Israel taking action which gave Israel the element of surprise. Jordan and Saudi have also publically criticised Hamas for the escalation in violence - could it be that a pardigm shift of power is in the making with Israel colluding with other Arab states to take down Iran? Israel aren't the only ones nervous about Iran with nukes.

If not this approach and if this is the year we need to choose whether we do something about Iran then all manner of game plans will be afoot. I would estimate that the US/UK and other contributors' armed forces are spread thinly at the moment due to Afghanistan and Iraq. Any build up in the numbers of personnel for an impending attack against Iran wouldn't go un-noticed, especially in Iraq. Afghanistan on the other hand could easily be used to mask a troop build up as well as utilising our current presence in the Persian Gulf.

This of course assumes a conventional attack, I wouldn't be surprised if an attack of a different nature was being thought out. Without much knowledge of Iran's infrastructure, would an EMP strike be effective?

Given that there are large number of Western sympathisers in Iran (apparently the old western films are huge over there) a nuclear strike I would imagine is last on the list. Perhaps a limited theatre in and around Tehran as long as Ahmadinejad was home would do the trick?

Interesting times. Anyone for a game of risk?

JC

terrorbytes.blogspot.com

Just Cause said...

Abu, I was theorising about military action, not offering sympathy for the masses at large. 'Hearts and minds' has become a popular tactic for some Western forces hence it has to be taken into consideration if a country has an oppressed majority that can be utilised in some way rather than obliterating most of them with a nuke.

Again, just me theorising, someone may have their finger on the big red button as we speak!

JC